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Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

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Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#811

Post by DickingAround »

endless1234 wrote: post #742
janoside wrote: post #612

Nic Carter's rebuttal to a Bloomberg comparison between Bitcoin/Visa, including assessments of total and per/transaction energy usage: "First of all, Bitcoin and Visa are fundamentally different systems. Bitcoin is a complete, self-contained monetary settlement system; Visa transactions are non-final credit transactions that rely on external underlying settlement rails. Visa relies on ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, the global…

Would the need for oil and military go away were we to switch to using bitcoin for everything? Why are those coupled to the dollar's energy usage?

You still need to use oil, but you don't have to use dollars. The support for dollars relies on a lot of things including the government and thus the military, which are big costs and oil consumes. If the dollar didn't rely on the military power of the US, why is the Bretton Woods meeting and the post war monetary policy so important to it's dominance (something practically no one disputes)? Why is it that the US seems to care so much about pricing oil in dollars? You don't need a tinfoil hat (as other comments suggest) to notice the US government has a strong interest in everyone using our currency and that where the gov has a strong interest, it also uses it's guns.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#813

Post by anigbrowl »

brokencode wrote: post #782

Bitcoin is so fundamentally deficient that I am absolutely shocked by its continuing popularity. I’ve tried and tried to think of a legitimate purpose for it, but I’m confident that it doesn’t have one. It is just too slow and inefficient to be used as a currency, and I can’t understand why anybody would use something so volatile as a value storage mechanism similar to gold. Transactions provide extremely dubious pri…

While I largely agree, the existence of volatile instruments (in the abstract) is a Good Thing in that it offers the possibility of rapid gains for people who are willing to accept risk but only have a small pile of capital, sort of like a poker game with no minimum stake (unless you want to treat the transaction fees as such).

Where else can you take those sort of risks? Stock fads like $GME are notable for their rarity because large capital holders benefit more from stability than volatility. You could gamble in a casino but people don't like betting against the house, which fills the role of a market maker. Volatile instruments like bitcoin are more like a casino where the dealer is paid a fee per hand but is not a participant in the game.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#814

Post by kerng »

sharpneli wrote: post #440

At that rate and assuming 4tx per second a single Bitcoin transaction consumes 165kWh. A Tesla battery is bit over 50kWh. So let's round that to 3 full charges of Tesla battery. That's 350km/220 miles of range per charge. In total 1050km or 660 miles of driving. So basically if you want to transfer money and the recipient is closer than 660 miles from you it's more efficient to just get a bunch of bills, drive there…

I think your analysis shows how valuable (literally) Bitcoin actually is.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#815

Post by kerng »

kqr wrote: post #546

And this is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is designed to be anti-efficient. "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy and being the one to accelerate the (local) heat death by the most is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

Indeed, the comment shows how valuable Bitcoin actually really is - it's pretty impressive.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#816

Post by madacol »

DSingularity wrote: post #808

I wish people would acknowledge that we are still in the early stages of blockchain technology. When ethereum proof of stake arrives then you will arguably have the security of Bitcoin in a much more efficient blockchain.

They don't have the same security, for example, the immutability property is seriously weakened, you cannot verify it anymore, we could argue it becomes federated among the stakers

But sure, most other things still seems to work (I'm not expert BTW)

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#817

Post by jiveturkey »

sharpneli wrote: post #440

At that rate and assuming 4tx per second a single Bitcoin transaction consumes 165kWh. A Tesla battery is bit over 50kWh. So let's round that to 3 full charges of Tesla battery. That's 350km/220 miles of range per charge. In total 1050km or 660 miles of driving. So basically if you want to transfer money and the recipient is closer than 660 miles from you it's more efficient to just get a bunch of bills, drive there…

You didn't include the production cost (energy input) to make the paper bills. I can only assume it's negligible but perhaps that should be stated.

The maintenance cost of the Tesla, however, is not neglibible. 660 miles will have measurable/accountable tire wear.

Most importantly, you didn't account for the utility value of the power. Teslas are charged with power that would otherwise be saved, and would not produce CO2, etc. Whereas my understanding is that BTC are mostly mined with excess power that would just go to waste if not used, eg "surplus" hydro generation. Of course that's not completely the case, but any analysis must be "full lifecycle" to hold any water.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#819

Post by minsc__and__boo »

root_axis wrote: post #765
arithmomachist wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least the proof of work ought to compute something useful.

It can't be made useful because the output of a useful calculation can't be known in advance - otherwise it wouldn't be useful.

You can gain use computing to gain specificity from complexity though, and recognize that new specificity - i.e. brute force protein folding calculations.

Re: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index

#820

Post by rspeele »

kerng wrote: post #815
kqr wrote: post #546

And this is not surprising. Cryptocurrency is designed to be anti-efficient. "Proof of work" is just a synonym for "having wasted tons of energy." This is my main beef with these systems. Gaining fundamental value from the act of wasting energy and being the one to accelerate the (local) heat death by the most is not a sensible basis for a 21st century technology.

Indeed, the comment shows how valuable Bitcoin actually really is - it's pretty impressive.

Interesting take. Does the amount of money spent on Herbalife show how valuable it actually really is? What about essential oils or healing crystals?

In a tautological way, sure, everything's worth what somebody's willing to pay for it. But the above examples must call into question whether there is a distinction between what something is worth in dollars, and what its merit is.

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